Surgery Update for Isaac

It was fitting as we woke up this morning and realized that it is the 5th anniversary of Isaac's first surgery (was less than 2 months old)! Today, Isaac is undergoing surgery to remove the current growth rods and screws that stabilize his spine and replace all of those things with new rods and screws.  There are a couple of reasons for this procedure.  First, Isaac has had multiple staph infections and it is believed the infection could be living on the rods or screws.  We have been controlling this infection with long-term antibiotics, but he has now been on these medications for almost a year now.  The doctors believe we need to try and get him off the antibiotics as soon as we can.  Secondly, we are nearing the end of the length of the current rods and he was going to need to have them replaced with longer ones soon anyway.  We decided with his doctor that getting this done over the summer, to allow Isaac to be fully recovered and back to 100% before school starts.  

Isaac continues to be incredibly brave and strong through all of these procedures (this is surgery 13 we think).  This morning, he didn’t cry, just a little quiver of his lip when we had to leave him.  He was talking about what he wanted to eat afterwards (request was for Rice Chex!). We have ongoing discussions with him as he asks questions about his surgeries:

“Why don’t you come into the room where you don’t go?”

“How many nights am I going to stay at the hospital?”

“Will I get to stay in the super fun bed?”

“Will you buy me toys at the gift store?”

“What is Dr. Schwend going to do?”

As you can tell - some fun questions, and some questions, not as much fun to answer. But we are always upfront with him and answer honestly.

We hope that Isaac will only be here a couple of days, but we also know that things change, so we’ll roll with it!  We have fireworks on standby at the house, and if he is here, we are hoping Crown Center is doing a display and he can watch from a window here at CMH.  Thank you to everyone who continues to say prayers for a little guy and give our family strength and encouragement.  Our support network is absolutely incredible and we couldn’t be more thankful.  

Once Isaac is out of surgery and in his room, we will do another update.  Thank you again.  Isaac rocks!